When Chile did this with tech entrepreneurs instead of just giving it to local companies they paid for foreigner entrepreneurs to come there to stimulate the local startup scene.
I'm curious how effective that was? Anyone here part of that program? Was there ever a follow up by Startup chile on whether it was successful?
I'm in the program now (demo day next week!). The goal of the program from StartupChile's perspective is to make Chile the technology hub for Latin America, which it seems to be succeeding in. The goal is not specifically to produce great startups (although it has been a good feeder for other accelerators, and a few have raised some VC).
The entrepreneurs that travel to Chile get equity free funding and have to help build the ecosystem (either through teaching, sharing their network, running events, etc). There are 3 classes of startups a year, 100 startups in each batch, so the network of smart people grows and more of that knowledge is shared with local Chilean entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurs from other parts of Latin America who will likely stay because of the economy/opportunities here).
If anyone has questions about the program, happy to talk more about it. I have had a great experience.
Not sure why they are excluding older entrepreneurs (18-29 is the required age). I went to UofT, I'm in my mid-30s and in the Toronto area .. I get excluded from the whole Waterloo ecosystem, and programs such as this one. What I have around me is Mars, which doesn't make sense to me. Frankly, there seems to be a better tech culture around Ryerson (again, targeted at their students) than for my alma mater. We have Mars close by but as you can tell, I don't see how it benefits fledgling entrepreneurs.
The main purpose of Startup Chile was to put Chile on map as one of the tech hubs and it has been certainly successful in that.
The program in itself is not as involved in the success of the startup as other accelerators because it doesn't take any equity in your startup.
It certainly has managed to attract entrepreneurs but the success will be short-lived unless it can also attract investors which it hasn't been able to do so far.
There is a paper coming out soon from a Stanford researcher who has evaluated the success of Startup Chile. I don't know the details, but from what I heard the results have been very positive.
I went through Startup Chile last year. Each year the number of Chilean startups applying and being accepted is growing. I would say that's some level of success based on the goal of the accelerator.
I'm curious how effective that was? Anyone here part of that program? Was there ever a follow up by Startup chile on whether it was successful?